Tides of Change
by a mountain of gideon's scones
Summary: Because sometimes, a heartbreak can bring forth another relationship, one that perhaps you never considered before. AmelieMyrnin - yes, I wrote it!


_I don't own anything:_

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_~x~_

His bolshy, self-obsessed attitude takes it in turns to both amuse her and irritate her: if she never found him amusing, she wouldn't have remained such close friends with him for hundreds of years, yet she can't help but admit that him being, on the whole, concerned about himself above all others sometimes grates upon her. He's a genius in his own right, she cannot ever dare to doubt that, and it's sometimes nice to have someone cleverer than herself around because, well, it means she has always had someone else to blame if things go wrong.

Yet his attitude didn't save him from the disease, didn't halt the spreading of the almost Alzheimer's throughout his body, and neither did it help her. Myrnin, the strongest person she has known for a _long_ time – after all, bipolar is perhaps the hardest thing she has ever seen a person battle – decayed as though he were the humans he loved (loves) to consume, falling almost like a ragdoll. He fought as hard as he could, she knows to this very day, yet each attack he launched, the disease snuck in from behind. He never stood a chance.

And she knows that when _he_ fell, they were all lost.

But now…now, Myrnin's back and she has the friend she has admired and protected for so many years. He's back to being the irritating idiot who doesn't take no for an answer – _"Amelie, I __**need**__ the extra machine; it's __**not**__ just a desire_" – yet makes her laugh, something she desires particularly at this moment in time.

She's lost her Sam, the realisation that those who love her fall faster than those who don't – after all, everyone falls at some point – hitting her harder as the days go by, and he's barely used to being in society. Everything is so strange to him, just as it is so undesirable for someone who cares nought but for death, to join the man she loves, and he wonders why she continues to stay in Morganville now she has reached her goal of saving the vampires.

Even being the self-centred vampire he is, he can tell that she's struggling to live on as she becomes more and more distant. Things he knew she cared about when Morganville was founded no longer seem to be her priorities, nor keeping her word about the rights of humans, and he worries that she'll soon think that everything is futile. The others have places to go, places they wish to either return to or visit, yet he has none of this. All he has is his work, which is only wherever he has utter peace – and Amelie. She's the best – the _only_ – friend he's ever had and he can't imagine a life without her now that he's back in her life.

The years in which they were separated by the huge gulf of an ocean she sailed across to escape the constraints England placed upon her were horrendous for the most part, mere spots of brightness shining through – and the majority of those were when she responded to his questions of the New World, the realms of Earth newer than themselves. He wrote to her often, simply desiring to read the words of the woman who he grew to adore in their years together, the woman who he continued to rely upon.

Then things began to change.

She began to sound lost, fearful of things that began to happen to companions of her, and he realised that he couldn't stay away any longer: their feud (which occurred simply over whether she owned the largest bible in the house or not) was over and he _had_ to leave for her.

That's what their relationship was like.

_~x~_

He hears her leaving through the portal every night, when she pretends to head to her bedchambers to slumber like sleeping beauty (who, in Myrnin's opinion, was more of a horse than a beauty), and he knows where she's going. It's to Sam's grave, the only place she feels that she can confess her feelings about him and life, and this is perhaps the thing that makes Myrnin the saddest he has felt since before he left England. The depth of the complete desolation he knows that his friend feels is overwhelming, places he has never thought to visit – even when he 'lost' Ada – and knows no means to bring her back. It's frightening to contemplate losing _Amelie_ to the dangerously uncharted waters of the depression after the death of a loved one – she's always been the one that keeps everything together and now…now she's fading away.

He's scared. He doesn't know what to do, how to react, how to bring her back and he doesn't even know how to put it into words. He can only compare her to a star nearing the end of its life as a mainstream star and making the decision to either become a white dwarf, weaker and smaller yet able to cope, or implode to form a black hole, abandoning her life for the simplicity of nothingness. She's fragile, indecisive and angry, fearful and unknowledgable in regards for what she should do in life – and all he wants to do is to help her.

.

She usually returns the hour before sunrise, murmuring softly to herself about how she needs to take flowers up to Sam's grave because it's looking plainer every time she goes. He can't sleep until he knows she's back, knows she hasn't done anything stupid to try and allow herself to join Sam in heaven or wherever he may be, and so he spends the time recollecting memories of them in the past. They had the greatest of times, he recalls fondly, intriguing ideas about life and what they would be doing in the future. She was his best friend, the only person he needed, and him her's, the person who knew the other inside out.

Now, he can barely recognise her. She's either entirely closed over, using her grief as a shield to stop a single person getting close enough to her like Sam did, or depressed to the point of near suicide. It's not the Amelie he has always known and loved and as the time she returns to her home each night becomes later, he knows he has to interject, to ensure that he doesn't lose even the tangible link he has to the old Amelie.

.

That night, he has his bag ready for his mission to stalk Amelie around the town as she makes her way to the graveyard. He's noticed that she's stopped heading straight there via the portal, usually stopping off midway down a street to then head to the graveyard herself – but he's prepared for this, copious amounts of various anti-vampire equipment in his bag (to be unprepared is to be dead, even if he is a vampire) to waylay any vampire who could be hostile towards either of them.

He walks through the moonlight, looking out to find the woman clad entirely in cream – or she was last time he saw her, an hour ago – the moonlight guiding his way through the streets. It catches everything, illuminating buildings in the strangest of manners, highlighting areas perhaps not supposed to be highlighted, and casting other parts into the darkest, deepest shadows he has ever seen – perhaps akin to the thoughts of Amelie at the current time.

She's ahead of him now, ambling aimlessly as her head is turned up to the heavens. There's not the slightest drop of rain as she opens her mouth, a melody pouring out of her mouth as she turns down the street that takes her towards the graveyard.

As he follows her, he realises why the street had been added to her route: it was where she first met him, he learnt from Oliver, the church on the corner being her place of solitude when Sam walked into her life.

.

She walks into the graveyard and moves fluidly along the rows of the dead, ignoring them all save the marble headstone that stands alone on the far side of the grassy embankment. Solitude for the man who lies with neither vampires nor humans, the only man to sacrifice himself for the town, and a peaceful place for Amelie to sit and discuss her feelings with Sam, under the shade of the old oak tree looming protectively over Sam.

He can hear her muttering away to Sam about her day, about how she can't concentrate on anything other than him, when he decides it's time to approach.

"Amelie," he doesn't bother to try and edge in, simply calls her name from a good ten yards away, waiting for her reaction.

He gets none.

She continues to talk to Sam, almost as if she hasn't heard Myrnin's call, and he has to take step after step as he continually says her name, waiting for some sort of reaction from her. Not until he touches her on her shoulder does he get this, a yelp of fear and anger intermingled as she tries to fight him off from a weaker position.

"What do you want at this time?" she asks him, angered that he dare interrupt her here, not bothering to see that he's worried for her, that perhaps there could be more than just a friendly concern for her there. All she cares about is Sam…

He says nothing, simply sits down next to her and offers her a peach before talking. "I know you come down here every night, Amelie, and it's not healthy. I implore you to reconsider this…" he trails off because she's staring at him almost as if she doesn't know him, as if he's some sort of new enemy of her's.

"I love him, Myrnin, I miss him – and do you think…do you think that there's another in this town who is willing to accept me for who I am?" her lower lip quivers as she finds herself crying, the rivulets streaming down her cheeks in a matter of seconds.

As he looks at her, he's entranced by the beauty that the emotion so rarely seen on Amelie's face in public: the glistening drops highlighting the cream colour of her skin, the tracks running in varied directions over her face that gives her a more radiant look. He never knew that vampires could get bags under their eyes, yet Amelie has, the sockets her once disconcerting grey eyes sit in hollowed out in grief.

"Yes," he finds himself answering, not sure where the word comes from when there has been silence reigning for so long. "I am sure that there is another in this town who could accept your flaws, Amelie, for they have been for centuries, yet they are only just realising this instant."

Her eyes narrow as she looks him in the face, the tears ceasing as soon as her attention is detracted from Sam. She can't comprehend what he means, whether the words he is saying are just words or if they have a meaning she can decipher. With Myrnin, she can never tell, his brilliance sometimes being his downfall with the way that words can so easily become masterpieces or simply nonsense within seconds.

"He died for me," she says suddenly, directing the conversation back to Sam. "I owe him my misery for this."

Myrnin shakes his head slowly, a small smile creeping onto his lips. "Oh no, Amelie, you don't owe him your misery. He wanted you to live to be _happy_, to fulfil things you were yet to fulfil, so that you didn't have to die. He wanted you to _live_, not to continue in this half existence where you think Sam is alive and that he is coming back to you. You can't continue with this."

"Oh really?" is all she says in response to his final sentence, her eyebrows visibly raising from their original position. "I presume that you feel that you can show me to this man I have known for so many years to inform him that he apparently loves me, for I cannot think of but one name, the person being _highly-_" she's cut off by his lips suddenly appearing upon her own, the suddenness resulting in all words ceasing to emit from her mouth.

He doesn't know what makes him kiss her, what makes him contemplate changing their relationship from platonic to whatever it will become by making this leap. He wouldn't say he has fully formed love for her, not whatsoever, yet he knows that there is the potential for something to spread from this point and that he could, perhaps, fill but a little of the void Sam left there.

She doesn't know how, but she finds herself kissing him back, confusing every part of herself as her emotions go haywire, trying to process how kissing her friend is going to help her move on from Samuel in a way that doesn't render him entirely forgotten. His hand wraps around her waist as her arms twist themselves around his neck, her fingers foraging in his hair to lock into the perfect curls he has kept for centuries. There's something about him that's so unique, just like Sam, and she wonders why this never came up before.

And then she pulls away, remembering that she came here to honour her Samuel, the one who died for her. So, with her heart confused, her arms remove themselves from Myrnin's neck, her cheeks flushed as she tries to comprehend what they did.

"I…I don't know what that was," she whispers, her voice barely audible over the song of the bird behind them.

"That was a chance for a…well, it's not a fresh start yet it's a chance for you to move on from Sam with me," he shrugs, not knowing how to phrase it. "This isn't something that means everything to me, Amelie, for you know that science is my love, first and foremost. Yet there has always been a spark between us, something that could have ignited but was kept doused. I suppose it could continue to slumber between us for as long as you desire. As usual, milady, I am at your command."

He closes his eyes as he waits for the split second decision from the woman who, mere minutes ago, continued to cry for the lost love of her life – now, she has the possibility of another who has perhaps been there from the start. To make the life changing decision in mere seconds is too much, which results in her standing up – how can she make it at the grave of Samuel?

"Come with me," she suggests, indicating the path around the side of the graveyard that leads through the trees and flowerbeds. So Myrnin scurries along behind her, catching up within a second and lingering by her shoulder. "This garden is a picture of things old and things new, Myrnin. When I founded this town, I planted the very first tree here from a seed I brought with me from England. Here lies the memories of our past, the place where I know a piece of my home for the longest time shall be forever.

"Yet there are the signs of the new here, also, with flowers never existing in my day to offspring from the English oak. I have both in my life and yet I am expected to make a decision between them…it is a near impossible choice, Myrnin, and I hope that you appreciate that."

He nods slowly, deeply, not daring to look her in the eyes as she turns from right to left, observing the depth of the colours of the flowers surrounding them. Meandering forwards, she does a pirouette on the spot, her hair flying across her shoulders and catching her in the eye, resulting in Myrnin moving across to lift the obstruction from her face.

She smells of cherries, he decides, or her hair does at least, cherries from the fruit trees back home in Wales. The texture of her hair is smooth and flawless, no split ends there, and he remembers when he would braid it for her in the past, when she desired to attend parties – she always hated doing her own hair.

Slowly, she lifts her hand to cover his and releases her locks from his hand, continuing to hold onto the huge hand of his even as she is free from him. Her head turns to look him in the eye and he sees determination and strength there, attributes he remembers well from when he knew Amelie before, Amelie the warrior princess, not the coward. The Ice Queen indeed, he smiles ever so slightly as he thinks of this name he has heard for her, deciding that it is not her whatsoever: she is fiery and filled to the brim with passion, be it for him or for Sam.

She moves her hand down to it's normal level, yet clings to his continually as she walks forwards, closing her eyes and breathing in the air. "There's a fresh wind, Myrnin," she tells him in her softest voice, one akin to the one at the grave. "It brings with it the tide of prosperity and fresh hope, a chance for a new beginning if you deem it necessary to take. And I accept."

This time, _she_ turns her head towards his and presses her lips to his softly, her hand continuing to reside in his.

Happy times can perhaps continue, after all.

_~x~_

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_So, this is a pairing that I think is a __**little**__ weird (after all Samelie or Ameliver make more sense, espec with Clyrnin around – WHOOP) but I like the idea of them together._

_Review please and thanks._

_Vicky xx_


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